hurl her off the cliff. She goes down screaming.
The crowd is screaming like wild.
I suddenly feel someone approaching me from behind, and I turn and spot it just in time. A large boy charges and jumps up on my back. But I bend over as he does, and in one smooth motion, flip him. He lands flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. I step up and kick him hard once in the face, knocking him out.
I see Ben tackled hard from behind, driven to the ground; Logan, beside him, reaches around and elbows the attacker in the back of the head, knocking him off Ben.
But then Logan himself is kicked, right in the ribs, and he keels over. A second boy jumps on Logan, pinning him down.
Bree picks up a huge rock and brings it down on the back of Logan’s attacker. He rolls off of him. I’m surprised by Bree’s fierceness.
Logan rolls onto his back. He breaks free of his second attacker, knees him in the gut, and throws him off. He then manages to reach around and grab him in a chokehold, choking him until he passes out.
Dozens more of kids are fighting all around us, and many more are racing our way. Rocks are still hurling through the air, and a rock from a spectator hits a kid hard in the temple, knocking him out. The crowd screams like wild.
I realize quickly that this is a no-win proposition. We can’t survive long like this. Soon, we’ll all be dead. There has to be another way out. There has to be. There has to be a way to reach the mainland without killing each other.
I look again at the four downed bridges, studying them-and suddenly, I see a pattern. Two of them-the way they collapsed. One was severed from our side, the rope still attached at the mainland, and one was severed from the mainland, the rope still attached to our land mass. The rope dangles straight down, like a ladder down to hell. I get an idea.
“ Follow me!” I scream to the others. “I see a way out!”
“ What are you talking about?” Flo screams.
But there is no time to explain. I grab Bree and sprint for one of the downed bridges. Logan hobbles behind me, Ben helping him, and Flo reluctantly prods Charlie, and they follow me, too.
“ You better know what you’re doing,” Flo warns.
The six of us race towards one of the collapsed bridges, dodging flying rocks and other kids. Luckily, the kids are preoccupied with each other-but I do get hit hard by a rock, in my hip. It hurts like hell.
As I reach the precipice I hit the ground and slide my body right to the edge. I look straight down, and see the two ropes, dangling straight down, all the way to the bottom of the canyon, a good hundred feet below. Heights. I hate heights. But I take a deep breath and force myself to look. They cut the ropes on the mainland, but they are still holding here. I test them, yanking hard. They don’t give.
I look over, to the far side of the canyon, and look at the other destroyed bridge. The ropes gave way on our end, but not on the far side. We could climb down her and climb on up on the other side.
I turn and see that some of the other kids notice us and head our direction. Rocks whiz by my head and I know we have to act quickly.
Flo looks over the edge, too, seeing what I’m thinking.
“ So, we can climb down,” she says. “Then what? That doesn’t get us out.”
“ They had to design this arena with a way out,” I say. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be a game. Don’t you see? It’s all a game to them. We just have to figure out how to break the code. This whole place was designed with a way to get to the other side. These two bridges, they collapse in two different directions. There’s a reason. It left a way out. We can climb down this rope, and climb up the other.”
“ That’s crazy,” Flo says. “What if they cut the rope on our way up?”
“ Or what if one of the kids cuts it on our way down?” Ben asks.
“ That’s the chance we have to take,” I say. “I don’t think they will. The other kids want a way out, too. And the gamemakers-don’t you see? They want survivors. They want to prolong this. We are their entertainment.”
The other kids are charging, getting closer know. They know something is up.
“ We have no time to lose,” I say. “I’ll go last and guard our backs. Bree, you go first. Then Charlie.”
I grab Bree, pull her over, position her so she’ll go down feet first, hold her hand, and make sure she grabs firmly on the ropes.
She looks back up at me, eyes wide in fear.
“ I’m scared,” she says.
“ Don’t be scared,” I assure her. “You’ll be fine. Now go!”
Bree hangs there, frozen in fear. I am sweating: I don’t know what to do.
Suddenly, Charlie appears. He slides over to her and looks at her sweetly.
“ It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll go with you. Just follow me. We can do it together. One rung at a time.”
Bree seems to relax as Charlie climbs down with her. They start to climb down together, and I am relieved.
Next, I prod Logan to go, then Ben.
Flo finally seems to be on board-but she stops and looks back over her shoulder. Several kids are running for us, now just twenty yards away. She reaches down, grabs a rock, and throws it at one of them. She hits him, and he goes down. But the others still charge.
“ What about the rest of them?” she asks.
“ Go,” I say. “Watch over them. I’ve got this.”
She looks at me with something like admiration, then, she surprises me. For the first time ever, she smiles.
“ You’re not half bad,” she says.
Before I can thank her for the closest she’ll probably ever come to a compliment, she gets on the rope and begins to quickly descend.
I turn just in time: two kids are charging right at me. One of them lowers his head, and I can see he is aiming to tackle me, to drive me off the edge.
I force myself to stay disciplined, relaxed. I wait. Just like my dad taught me.
Then, at the last second, I squat all the way as far down as I can, ducking under him, and as he is about to hit me, I spring up, using his momentum to throw him over my shoulder. His momentum carries him flying over the edge. He plummets down, screaming.
I can’t react fast enough, though, for the other one. He tackles me, driving me down to the ground hard. He has me right at the edge, and before I can react, he reaches over and chokes me, holding my head backwards over the cliff. I look over and see nothing but a sharp plummet between me and the canyon below. He has all the leverage. I have none.
I’m slipping and sliding, about to go over. He grimaces down, flashing his orange teeth. I realize that he will kill me. This is how I will die.
I’m running out of air, and quickly sliding of the edge, and I have few options. I realize I have to make one last desperate move.
I reach back, over the edge, and just manage to grab, with one hand, a huge root, sticking out the side of the cliff. I wrap my legs around his waist, then slide my body backwards, over the edge of the cliff, grasping the root for dear life. I pray it holds.
I swing over the edge hard, taking him with me. I let go of my legs and he goes flying, screaming, plummeting head over heel down to his death.
The root is quickly giving way, dirt flying everywhere; I manage to swing around just in time and grab the edge of the rope ladder. As I do, the root gives way. Another second and I would’ve been dead.
I hurry down the rope ladder, and as I do, I feel something hard hit me on the shoulder. I turn and see the spectators are going crazy, hurling rocks at all of us as we climb down. Another rock hits me hard in the back, and each one hurts more than the next. I just hope and pray that Bree can hang on.
I am about halfway down the cliff when I feel the rope move. I look up and see a group of kids at the top, watching us, getting the same idea. They get onto the rope and begin to climb down, too. I was right: they didn’t cut it. They wanted out, too. I just hope the rope can hold us all.
I look down and see the others have already reached the canyon floor. I move double time, and scramble
